Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her head against the arm that encircled her.  As the girls who stood watching saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe away those tears, as they heard her say again, “Oh, Cordelia!  Cordelia! don’t, don’t cry!” they looked at one another in a confused, questioning sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed fashion towards the door.  Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they passed.  Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to Cordelia?  Hadn’t they any pity for her; hadn’t they any shame for what they had done?  Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately, “Oh, girls, I should think—­” and then broke down completely, and bowed her head against Cordelia’s, unable to say another word.  But somebody else took up her words,—­the very words she had used a second ago,—­somebody else whispered,—­

“Don’t cry, don’t cry.”  At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see—­Alice King standing beside her.  And then it seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly piped out,—­

“We—­we didn’t know as you’d care, like this, Cordelia.”

And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered out:  “Care?  How—­how could I hel—­help caring?”

“But we thought—­we thought you didn’t like us,” said another, hesitatingly.

“And I—­I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you’d despise me more if—­if I showed that I cared!” and Cordelia gave another little sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.

“Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!” cried one and then another, pityingly; and then a voice, it sounded like Alice’s, said, “We’ve been on the wrong track.”

Just here a bell in the hall—­the signal to those in the gymnasium that their half-hour was up—­rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses and prepare for dinner.

“Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!” cried Eva, flinging her arms around Alice’s neck the moment they were alone together.

“Good?  Don’t—­don’t say that,” exclaimed Alice, starting back.

“But you were.  I—­I was so afraid you’d be angry with me.  I—­”

Alice now flung her arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug, as she cried:  “Oh, Eva, it’s you who’ve been good.  I—­I’ve been—­a little fiend, I suppose, and I was horridly angry at first; but when I—­I saw how—­that Cordelia really was—­that she really felt what she did, I—­oh, Eva!” laughing a little hysterically, “when you stood mopping up Cordelia’s tears, all I could think was, there’s a little Samaritan.”